


Something Stupid (like 'I Love You')

by pndraa



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Romance, this is honest to god the corniest thing i've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 19:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15914646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pndraa/pseuds/pndraa
Summary: There was a lot left unsaid between Nick and Maria, and it's about time they said it.Post IW.





	Something Stupid (like 'I Love You')

The morning Nick Fury and Maria Hill woke up after the world was restored to its original state, they said nothing about it. It all felt like one bad dream, so they treated it like one.

They woke up in bed next to each other. They had been roommates since Fury brought the SHIELD Helicarrier back from the dead. They had their own bedrooms, but after some time they ended up spending their nights in each other’s beds, clinging onto each other like lovers.

Nick Fury and Maria Hill were roommates, coworkers, and friends. But they weren’t lovers.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything if we don’t want it to,” Maria said when Fury brought up the topic of them sleeping together. “It helps me get to sleep and it gets rid of your nightmares. What’s wrong with that?”

Nothing, they figured.

Despite the rest of the world rejoicing that the Avengers had brought half the universe back from the dead, Nick and Maria didn’t talk about it. They were alive again. The Avengers were off recuperating from the hellish battle with Thanos, and so the job of talking to government and world security officials was left to the Avengers’ old bosses.

They woke up. They ate breakfast. They went to work. Same old, same old.

At 9 pm things were done for the day. Maria waited in the lobby of the Avengers Facility for Nick. _(Some of her agents walked past her. They knew who she was waiting for but they never knew why. If they asked Maria would just say they carpooled.)_

“You know, you’ve softened me.”

Maria looked over at the opening elevator doors. Nick stepped out and walked towards her.

“I’m actually hungry,” he said.

“You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing,” Maria said.

“I feel like I’ve gotten weaker,” Nick replied.

“I made you adjust to normal human life after years of running SHIELD and the Avengers. There’s nothing weak being what you are,” Maria said.

“Whatever. Let’s just find somewhere that’s still open.”

They didn’t actually need to look. Three blocks away from their apartment, there was a half-decent 16-hour diner that was only ever empty between 8pm and 11pm. It was their go-to place when their days ended at 9 or 10 pm, or on an unlucky day, 1 am. Three nights a week they’d find themselves back at the diner.

The night staff knew them by names, and they greeted their waitress by name as well.  
They ate in silence. Nick didn’t question why Maria was drinking a latte at 9.30 pm. It was just something she did.

The diner wasn’t quiet. There was a top 100s pop song playing somewhere from the kitchen, accompanied by the chatter from the two waitresses behind the counter. Somewhere in the diner, there was a TV screen that played nothing but sports and the news.

Today it was the news, and of course they were talking about the miracle that was everyone’s revival.

Nick winced listening to the stories. Firstly, the speculations on how the Avengers did it were… completely inaccurate. And he hated the thought of his teams being misrepresented like that. Secondly, they were bringing up interviews with people reunited with their dusted loved ones, and that brought up memories that Nick wished he didn’t have.

He remembered the panic in Maria’s eyes and the desperation in her voice when she called out to him. He remembered the feeling of dread pooling in his stomach when the cars started crashing and the helicopter spiraled down from the sky. He remembered that dread multiplying tenfold as he watched his companion of fifteen years disintegrate right before him. He remembered feeling helpless for a moment – just for a moment, he was truly vulnerable and helpless – before he decided to page Carol.

Maria was looking at him. He glanced over at the TV screen, looking at it but not watching or listening to it. They’d avoided talking about their death for too long.

“Nick,” she said softly. “Are you alright?”

He snapped out of his trance. He looked over at Maria.

She was right there in front of him, coffee stained mug in her hand, and gentle smile on her lips. She wasn’t dead anymore. _They_ weren’t dead anymore.

He had been given two chances to live, and Maria one. That was more chances than most people would ever have. It was about time he stopped avoiding things.

“Maria?” He asked.

“Yeah?” She said.

“I -” Nick paused.

Back at SHIELD he had made decisions way more important than this in way less time. He was hesitating, and it was because he could ruin his closest and most precious friendship – one built on fifteen years’ worth of mutual trust and respect – within the next five seconds.

_(He’d agreed to take in a Russian ex-assassin to SHIELD. He’d ignored direct government instructions. He’d agreed to let his life and everything he stood for crumble to pieces in a day.)_

He had faced worse, so he said what he wanted to say.

“I love you.”

In that moment the world around them seemed to stop spinning. All that Maria felt in that moment was Nick’s gentle gaze laying on her and his voice, softer than usual, echoing through her head. She was certain that she heard it wrong. She stared back at him, wide-eyed and dazed and very, very much in disbelief.

_(She’d liked him ever since he took her under his wing at the Academy, maybe about fifteen years ago. She never agreed with the things he did but she always agreed with him. And a part of her always knew, but never acknowledged, how she really felt about him.)_

“I –“ Maria stuttered.

The silence fell between them again.  
“The time between your death and mine were some of the worst in my life. I watched you disappear before me. I heard you call out for me before you died. I had to tell you I loved you, but I couldn’t do anything about it because you were gone,” Nick said. “And I never want to go through that again.”

“Nick,” Maria said. Her voice wavered in her throat and came out as a whisper.

She took a good while to process everything. Her mind raced, her eyes darted left and right and up and down and her lips trembled as her eyes watered and she tried to find what to say.

Fifteen years of missed opportunities to tell him she loved him couldn’t be captured within a single ‘I love you’.

And as Nick watched the first tear roll down her cheek he thought for sure that he’d ruined everything between them. He wanted to say something, to salvage it, but he couldn’t. Because no matter what, he had meant everything he said.

“I love you too.”

Oh.

“And I – I can’t imagine ever losing you. Because we died, Nick. We were trapped in limbo in an infinity stone for years, and I wasn’t scared in there because you were always with me.”

He wanted to reach across the table to wipe her tears. But he didn’t, because he ended up moving right beside her in the U-shaped booth to hold her. She buried her face in his shoulder and let herself sink into his embrace.

“I love you,” Maria said again.

She dried her tears and pulled away from Nick. She looked away from him in a moment, then her eyes darted right back up to his. She held the side of his face and ran her thumb down the side of his face, from the middle of the scar hidden by his eyepatch down to his cheek.

Then she leaned forward to kiss him, and he leaned further in to kiss her back.

And there, in their cramped booth in the diner, they finally acknowledged everything unsaid between them in the past decade and a half.

_(They’d been living together for a solid four years. They’d been sleeping together on and off for two years, then for every night for the next two. They’d spent gloomy nights in dimly-lit offices and rainy nights in brightly-lit bedrooms together. They’d spent hours, wordless but awake in each other’s arms. But they had never once admitted they were in love.)_

The world around them stopped spinning at 9.45 pm. It didn’t spin again for the rest of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on the song of the same name by Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman.
> 
> I have so many feelings for this ship and they all came flooding back when I saw the leaked set pictures from Spiderman FFH. I have so much FuryHill in my fanfiction notebook, I swear I'll publish it all one day.


End file.
